thanks for your support. In the past three days, I have been doing
some housekeeping. I have reviewed each of the 2000- messages in the
archive, and have deleted those which are irrelevant. I will be doing
a second round for the more recent messages, but at a slower pace.
More members are now under moderation, meaning that their postings
will go through screening before they reach the group.
You will also notice a fall in membership. This is because I have
removed the "bouncing members", those whose email addresses are no
longer valid or accessible.
Please allow me to say my observation of the quantity and quality of
the mails to the group for the past half year:
There is a significant increase in the number of posts. There has
been a good discussion of computer projects or similar endeavors.
There is also a great deal of newbie questions, which are always
encouraged and welcome. On top of the normal Pali exercises, there
are of course those threads which results in never-ending
inconclusive and heated arguments. Hence, while the number of posts
is higher, there is a drop in the quality.
As such, I would like to remind everyone of the functions of this
mailing list.
1. This list provides a place for Pali enthusiasts to learn and share
their knowledge and experience in reading and understanding Pali
literature. It is to equip people with the knowledge and skills
necessary to read Pali texts independently. For those who already
know Pali, this list gives you the opportunity to guide and show
others the proper learning techniques.
2. This list is not used for preaching. It is for open-minded
interactions and discussions. For those who are beyond Pali, please
keep in mind the central theme of the group is "Pali-focused, Nikaya-
centric". Please avoid going beyond Pali sources as much as possible.
3. This list is not a dumping ground of "scholarly ideas". For those
with such ideas, please avoid an academic oevrtone as much as
possible. Also, please keep to the preliminaries as much as possible.
For the messages under moderation, I apply the following techniques:
1. A message which is related directly to one of the grammar study or
sutta translation threads, it will be released as soon as I review it.
2. The remaining messages will be in a queue, and reviewed only on a
daily basis. I will only release a suitable number of them so as not
to overload myself and the group. Any unsuitable message will be
removed from the queue without notice.
3. Yahoo! keeps these pending messages for up to 14 days. If there
are too many of them in the queue, your message may be deleted before
I even read it. So, please do not flood the message queue, and allow
others a chance to get their message to the group.